AI inference is splitting between reliable firms and open networks
The more important fight may be less about which AI model is best and more about who runs the model when a request comes in. OpenRouter recently raised $113 million and now routes 47 trillion tokens each week across different providers. Developers can send requests to OpenRouter, and it chooses where those requests should run.
The market is separating into two groups. Fireworks, Together, Groq, and large cloud companies compete on , service promises, and enterprise contracts. networks such as Akash, io net, Venice, and c0mpute focus on fewer central limits, such as s, account bans, and company-controlled .
DeepSeek now accounts for 4 of the 5 most used models on OpenRouter. When strong models are free or open to use, the that runs them becomes a bigger part of cost, access, and control.
Key points
- OpenRouter raised $113 million.
- OpenRouter routes 47 trillion tokens each week across s.
- Fireworks, Together, Groq, and large cloud companies compete on and enterprise contracts.
- Akash, io net, Venice, and c0mpute offer networks with fewer central controls.
- DeepSeek makes up 4 of the 5 most used models on OpenRouter.